When it Actually Starts Getting Better

People always say “Just hold on, it gets better. Keep fighting, it really does get better”. Hearing that for more then 3 years gets pretty damn exhausting, so you completely disregard and refuse to believe the statement “It gets better”.

Until it actually starts to happen. When you’ve only cried once in the last two weeks, when you stop over-analyzing interactions with your friends and turn it into knowing they hate you, when you haven’t thought about harming yourself in over a month, when you can go out to a party without being paralyzed by your social anxiety, when you simply start feeling happy. I never thought things would be truly, genuinely better. I’ve had times where I was happy with some parts of my life, or happy for a brief period, but this is so different- because I feel happy with myself.

I’m doing amazing in school, I’m developing new, deep friendships, I’m giving myself opportunities I never would have in the past, and I am learning how fun it is to love myself. Being confident in my abilities and what I’m doing with my life is such an amazing thing. I feel empowered, I feel strong, I feel completely capable of accomplishing whatever the hell I want. Yes, there will inevitably be a wave of brief sadness that will come over me, but just like the tides it will ebb and flow. And I am okay with that, because I know it will get better.